At the Buzzer: Florida Gators Basketball Defeats Richmond

The Florida Gators basketball team (6-1) took off and left the Richmond Spiders (4-3) in the dust from the get-go on Tuesday night in Gainesville, Florida ending up at 76-56.

Starting the game off with a 8-0 run, the Gators set the pace and never lost the lead for the remainder of the game. Part of the reason being that the Spiders just could not get any of their shots to go down – they shot a dismal 34% from the field and 35% from the line overall.

After a nice drive and finish by Dorian Finney-Smith, Florida was 14-8 with 12:38 left in the first half. By the under-8 time out the Gators were 17-9 from the rebounding edge, going 6-0 on the offensive glass.

Coming back to the court after the timeout, Florida came out with a vengeance slamming in back to back dunks from Egbunu and Finney-Smith. Devin Robinson bought into the tempo they set and set off a far jumper that gave the Gators a 15-point lead with 6:27 left in the half.

After four minutes of no Gator baskets, Chris Chiozza brought back the momentum with a shot from downtown extending Florida’s lead to 32-16 with just 2:53 left in the half. Egbunu and Robinson completed baskets from in the paint, Robinson getting an and-one. By the end of the first half the Gators were able to get one more basket by Kasey Hill and a free throw by Kevarrius Hayes to put Florida up 40-17.

Coming in to Tuesday’s matchup Richmond had shot above 42% in every first half this season. However, against the Gators they shot just 20.8%.

Florida’s percentage was not much better than Richmond’s at 41%, but their defense forced turnovers and steals making for more shot opportunities. They had 57 rebounds and forced 9 turnovers in the first half alone.

Coming back from the locker room, Florida was ready to keep on rolling. John Egbunu hit the court and quickly put in a layup extending the Gators’ lead to 42-19. However, Richmond refused to go down easy and went on an 8-0 run that ended with a back to back by KeVaughn and Egbunu at 15:00 to keep the Gators at a 20-point lead.

Seconds after notching his third double-double of the season, Devin Robinson took a hard hit and limped off of the court to the locker rooms with what appeared to be a hurt ankle. However, he was not gone for long and came back on to the court with 9:40 still left in the game playing just as well as he started out the game.

By then, Florida was still holding on to the lead with a lot of leeway at 56-31. KeVaughn Allen and Chris Chiozza extended that lead with back-to-back three-pointers with 7:36 still on the clock.

The Gators stayed in the game even with that large of a lead and Mike White finally got his full defensive effort that he has been looking for all season. Eleven Gators were able to score against the Spiders to end the game with a 20-point lead at 76-56 with two players having double-doubles. John Egbunu led the boards with 17 points and 14 rebounds and Devin Robinson had 12 points and 13 rebounds – even with missing part of the game.

Jenna Ladd
Growing up, Jenna took more of an interest in cheerleading then what was going on the football field and basketball court. It wasn't until she attended her first Gator football game that she finally took notice of football. It was love at first down. (She also enjoys lame jokes). From there, Jenna decided to immerse herself in all things sports - never missing a home football game for all four years of college. During her junior year, she stumbled into the amazing opportunity to marry her love of writing with her love of sports and somehow was able to land an internship with GatorCountry. When she is not covering games, Jenna likes to box, binge-watch Family Guy and American Dad on Netflix and keep up with her fantasy football teams. She loves Jesus, all things sugary and funny snapchat filters, but her main goal in life right now is to find a job after graduating with a degree in sport management.